Red River Valley Mutual Insurance Company of Altona, Manitoba was founded in 1941 as a private commercial mutual insurance agency, which took over some of the members of the former Mennonite Church fire insurance association in the West Reserve, which had been founded in 1900 as a breakaway from the East Reserve association (see Canada and States Mennonite Insurance Association), but which had had its own "insurance elder" under the East Reserve plan since the original settlement in the West Reserve in 1875. The remaining members continued in the Manitoba Mennonite Mutual Insurance Company with headquarters at Steinbach, Manitoba, which was incorporated in 1940, one year earlier. The Red River Company, which did not restrict its patrons to Mennonites as did the Manitoba Mutual, but served the general public (although the majority of its policyholders are still Mennonites), had 5,800 policyholders in 1955, with about $37,000,000 property coverage. Approximately one third of its 5,520 members were members of the Evangelical Mennonite Conference (Kleine Gemeinde).